Ch. 15
What philosophy promises.
WHEN a man was consulting him how he should persuade
his brother to cease being angry with him, Epictetus
replied, Philosophy does not propose to secure for a man
any external thing. If it did (or, if it were not, as I say),
philosophy would be allowing something which is not
within its province. For as the carpenter's material is
wood, and that of the statuary is copper, so the matter of
the art of living is each man's life.What then is my
brother's?That again belongs to his own art; but with
respect to yours, it is one of the external things, like a
piece of land, like health, like reputation. But Philosophy
promises none of these. In every circumstance I will maintain, she says, the governing part100 conformable to nature.
Whose governing part? His in whom I am, she says.
How then shall my brother cease to be angry with
me? Bring him to me and I will tell him. But I have
nothing to say to you about his anger.
When the man, who was consulting him, said, I seek
to know this, How, even if my brother is not reconciled
to me, shall I maintain myself in a state conformable to
nature? Nothing great, said Epictetus, is produced suddenly, since not even the grape or the fig is. If you say
to me now that you want a fig, I will answer to you that
it requires time: let it flower101 first, then put forth fruit,
and then ripen. Is then the fruit of a fig-tree not perfected
suddenly and in one hour, and would you possess the fruit
of a man's mind in so short a time and so easily? Do not
expect it, even if I tell you.
[p. 50]